


A Crush on a Rogue

by purplekitte



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: M/M, Male Elezen Duskwight omni-classed WoL, One Shot Collection, One-Sided Attraction, Spoilers through 3.1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 20:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7004422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplekitte/pseuds/purplekitte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Warrior of Light has an obvious crush on Thancred, but always knew it was one-sided. Thancred flirts as easily as he breathes, and is flexible enough to sometimes let himself get carried away when it suits him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was, in retrospect, becoming obvious that Thancred had really wanted to have a conversation with him more than have sex with him, but flirting as easily as he breathed, his comfort zone was pillow talk. Mariux would have been fine with people just saying what they meant, but also, he had to admit, he would still have gone along with the tumble portion of the lead-up even if he’d known.

Everyone who knew Mariux for any length of time soon learned he was gay, because he mentioned it every time a woman hit on him. Though he had shied from saying anything to Thancred directly, he was hardly subtle about his attraction to him and certainly the other Scions had heard him express such opinions about him, then sigh about how he was probably straight and how he shouldn’t get his hopes up he was one of those deeply closeted guys who womanized as overcompensation.

“What is the Echo like? I’ve heard about it from the Antecedent, but I’ve rarely seen her have fits like yours.”

 _Personally I’d always assumed they were epileptic seizures,_ he didn’t say, because that was flippant. He knew what Thancred was really asking, but he could only answer as far as the questions went. He wondered how much Thancred would out and say--surely Minfilia and their experts had debriefed him on everything that had happened while he was possessed by the Ascian, but Mariux had not been so rude as to pry for more than he wanted to relive. “’Tis like falling, but having never seen one from outside, I do not know if that’s my body falling to the ground before the vision overtakes me entirely or if it comes later.”

“And your visions? Whose eyes do you see from? You can’t change the past, of course, but do you remember wanting to?”

“It’s like… seeing a play. You’re in the theatre, but not an actor. Though I suppose in that metaphor you could make a scene until the guards were called in to remove you. The show would go on.”

“And the tempering? Thou must be one of the few claimeth by Ifrit who surviveth to speak of it as thyself.”

Mariux tightened his arms around Thancred comfortingly. The texture of his white hair beneath his chin—these Hyur were all so short; of all the uplanders only Roegadyn and Au Ra men were a reasonable height. He knew Thancred’s regret in having the other tempered captives executed, the sort of guilt that drove him to push himself too far and be captured himself. He knew why it had been necessary and didn’t blame him for doing it. His heart also lept at the intimacy of Thancred thee-ing him, as if they hadn’t just had sex and he hadn’t heard other Scions addressing each other in the casual form.

“It wasn’t aught. I didn’t fight it off with great strength and will. It was like touching a fire and expecting to be burned, only to find it was an illusion spell created by a mischievous arcanist student.”

“Ah.”

He tried to think of a way to say ‘I’m sorry.’ He wanted to say ‘It’s no sign of great virtue or skill, and it’s nothing I can teach.’ He said, “That’s all.”


	2. Chapter 2

“Why were you wandering around Dravania as a murder hobo for months? That’s my job. Did you have amnesia or something?”

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t in a position to get better news and know to meet you in Ishgard, sealed against outsiders for centuries, and it didn’t occur to me to journey south to where, you might recall, we were, last I heard, wanted criminals to be hunted down in the streets.”

“It’s not your fault,” he said reflexively to Thancred’s barb. “We still haven’t found the others, except Y’shtola of course, and I’ve hardly been keeping a low profile.” It would be much later that Mariux decided Thancred’s explanation was rather lacking.

“You slew a handful of primals, chatted with the Emperor of Garlemald, uncovered the truth behind a thousand-year war, thwarted a megalomaniac archbishop’s ambitions, and then rode home on the back of the Father of Dragons? Does that about sum it up?”

“I went grimdark and became a dark knight for awhile.”

“A knight? You, the sorcerer?”

“I’m a man of many talents. I’ve been branching out.” He didn’t talk about how good being a murderous vigilante had been. How he had barely pulled himself back from the edge. How he should have known better, a black mage dragged from Ul’dah while barely holding in the fire that would have consumed an entire civilization if he had his way. He didn’t even talk about safer topics from his cross-classing, like Estinien’s lessons in how to be a dragoon or the way the ninja techniques Thancred’s old comrades from Limsa had taught him felt like dancing and reminded him of the Scion, and made him despair he’d never look that good while he fought.

“Been pining for me all this time?”

Mariux paused, unable to come up with a snappy answer. Part of him felt like he should feel bad his crush on Thancred had faded. Okay, maybe he still wanted to hit that, but the depths of the crush was gone. There had been Haurchefant, and he could never regret Haurchefant. He had loved Haurchefant and Haurchefant had loved him back and they had almost had something, almost had time to have something, and...

Thancred gave his usual flirting smile, but what he asked was, “Who did you lose?”

Mariux nodded, unable to speak yet, so glad for the understanding from whatever his expression had given away. He hoped, cowardly, that someone, Alphinaud or Tataru maybe, would explain the whole thing to Thancred out of his hearing so he wouldn’t have to say his name, wouldn’t have to tell the story of what he’d been like and how he’d been friend, hero, savior to him.

Finally, he said, “I’m glad you’re back. I’m glad Y’shtola’s back. We’ll find Minfilia and Yda and Papalymo.” He didn’t ask Thancred if he was in love with Minfilia.

“So, are we the same kind of friends you are with Y’shtola, or did you still have something else in mind?” Thancred shifted to flirtatious easily, but Mariux was sure he’d back off if he told him to. He’d been doing most of the pursuing before anyway, while Thancred confined most of his flirting to women.

It had surprised him, the first time he’d flirted with a man after Haurchefant died. He told himself it had been months, he wasn’t being unfaithful. Haurchefant would have wanted him to. It meant he was healing and moving on with life. He was glad he’d had the time to get used to that idea before meeting his old flame again. He had a better idea of what he wanted from Thancred now, and while it wasn’t what he’d had with Haurchefant, it still involved a bed that wasn’t cold and empty. It still involved wanting him. He didn’t mind how few hours it took for Thancred to end up in bed with Hilda. That was just what he did, and Mariux didn’t have any real claim on him.

So he smiled. He stepped closer and crushed Thancred in his arms. He was here. He was real. No Echo visions appeared saying this was really an Ascian trap or something. (Though that thought evoked random flashes at the corner of his eye of the Warriors of Darkness.)

He ran his hair through Thancred’s shaggy hair, felt the scratch of his beard against his neck, worked off the ties of his eye patch to see the new scars on his face. It had been awhile since he’d kissed someone who wasn’t another Elezen, and it felt strange to lean down to the Hyur. Thancred’s skin was darker tanned than usual, rough from the sun and the elements. He fought the urge to giggle. “Did you really run around naked in the woods for a month?”

Thancred made a show of looking offended at his mirth. “I suppose the situation has some manner of ridiculousness, especially after I made adequate enough knives to not be at the mercy of every feather flea I encountered.”

He wondered how afraid Thancred had been, how weak, how vulnerable. He would not be so crass as to let those thoughts show, though.

He took the opportunity to kiss him again. “Welcome back.”


	3. Chapter 3

Thancred had hardly been unaware of the Warrior of Light’s crush on him. It had never been subtle, though they had never discussed it directly. Y’shtola teased him that the Warrior had asked her if he was single, and he rolled his eyes and said he could have figured that out from the stares, from the way he found any opportunity to chat with Thancred in particular whenever they had moments between their duties, like a puppy. But the Warrior never pushed, never asked directly, so Thancred never had to answer and it became a comfortable dance.

He’d have slept with him easily enough, if it had been that, man or not. Women were easier to flirt with, that didn’t mean he was exclusive. It was feelings that got awkward. Thancred, he had been known to proclaim, only slept with people as shallow as he was. The Warrior wanted someone to settle down with, and Thancred avoided that like the plague.

It hadn’t been a surprise to find the Warrior dozing beside his bed after Lahabrea, after Ultima, not too close, not taking advantage. Well, being alive had been a surprise. He’d been sure the Warrior would kill him to save him, and he’d welcomed it. But the Warrior of Light, the Savior of Eorzea, didn’t stop, didn’t do things half-measure, didn’t let reality tell him something was impossible. And the hero had chosen him.

Then he lost it.

Thancred never met Lord Haurchefant de Fortemps. The Warrior of Light had barely glossed over his adventures in Coerthas between the attack on the Waking Sands and the fight against Ultima, other than a few muttered curses about the intolerance of Ishgardians. Garuda had seemed a more salient threat for the Scions to concentrate on in their debriefings, the Garleans.

Yet, upon leaving Thancred’s side beneath Ul’dah and promising to see him again, the Warrior had run to this man. If Alphinaud’s stories were to be believed, within an hour he had fallen totally and completely in love. And he had been a man, unlike Thancred, who could return that love.

The Warrior still flirted with Thancred, out of habit, but his heart wasn’t in it. He wasn’t brittle. Thancred had missed all of that too: the grief, the bloody revenge, the acceptance, the moving on. The Warrior wasn’t ready for another boyfriend, yet some part of him had already grown comfortable with the idea he was going to one day, that his lover wouldn’t have wanted him to be unhappy or alone forever without him.

Thancred cursed himself for a moment, for daring to be jealous when his own nature would have kept him from being the right one, for regretting what he’d never had. It would be better now. The comfortable flirting, a fling that would stay just a casual fling if they ever had one. It would have never worked out.


End file.
